Besides the traces of a great Roman camp, still distinctly visible on the brow of St. George’s hill, about two miles from Coway stakes, the footprints of the legions are to be seen in many places round Shepperton, and have been noted by Bede, Roy, Camden, Salmon, Gale, Stukeley, and other antiquarian writers. To these the author may add his own testimony, having found, in different parts of the property (especially when cleaning out a ditch which runs through War-close), various Roman coins and spikes, resembling spear-heads. Other relics of the Romans, such as urns, have frequently been dug from the gravel-pits opened during his time in different fields in the parish. [435] Tacit. Agric. c. 13; and Strabo confirms this view (iv. c. 4.). [436] Ibid. c. 15. [437] Tacit. Ann. xii. 34. [438] Strabo speaks, from personal observation, of the large stature of the Britons whom he saw at Rome. [439] Generally considered to be represented by the village of Bittern, about one and a half miles up the Itchen, above the present Southampton. [440] Cæs. B. G. vi. 13 and 14. Ibid. v. 14. [441] Ptol. Geogr. ii. c. 3. [442] “Uriconium, or Wroxeter,” by T. Wright, F.S.A. Lond. 1872. [443] Tacit. Ann. xii. c. 31. [444] “Abury Illustrated,” by W. Long, M.A. Devizes, 1858. [445] Nor can we omit noticing here a matter which has in former times been much disputed, whether or no there are any coins, clearly British, antecedent to the invasion of Cæsar. On the evidence of all the best MSS. of Cæsar’s Commentaries, especially of a very fine one of the tenth century in the British Museum, we find Cæsar distinctly stating that the Britons “use either brass money or gold money, or instead of money, iron rings, adjusted to a certain weight.” (Cæs. Bell. Gall. v. 10. E. Hawkins’ “Silver Coins of England” (1841), pp. 9-14. Evans’ “Coins of the Ancient Britons,” pp. 18 and 285. Lond. 1864.) It was only about the seventeenth century that the editors of Cæsar, Scaliger leading the way, corrupted this passage and made him assert that only substitutes for money were used by the natives. All the facts are in favour of the MSS., for coins of gold, sometimes of silver, but very rarely of copper, are found in different parts of England, and as is evident to any eye, are in form, fabric, and type, constructed on a model differing essentially from any thing of Roman origin. Indeed, as is well known to numismatists, the original British coins were constructed on Greek models, and, however rude, may be traced back, step by step, to the gold money (staters) of Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. Plenty of coins exist of the time of Cæsar’s second invasion and of Cunobeline, who was alive in the reign of Claudius; the first, in a purely British (_i.e._, Greek) type, the second, with an obvious imitation of those of the Romans—and perhaps executed, as some have thought, by Roman artists.—Tacit. Annals, xii. 31-36. [446] Dion. Cass. lx. c. 21. [447] Strabo, iv. 2.